Scottish companies are more ambitious. Three in four Scottish companies on shipshape.vc plan to expand overseas. That compares with around six in ten in the rest of the UK, and two in three among EU-based companies.
Where they plan to go differs even more than whether they plan to go. Of the companies that name a target market, 80% of Scottish companies name the US, against 73% in the rest of the UK and 61% in the EU.
The US is the default for founders in Scotland and the rest of the UK. It is not the default across the EU.
Where do we get our data?
The figures come from the shipshape.vc subscription dealflow dataset: 6,374 companies, with data to 13 October 2026. Company profiles in the dataset were last updated between September 2022 and October 2026.
We group companies by where they are headquartered: Scotland (137 companies), the rest of the UK (3,083) and the 27 EU member states (917). Expansion plans are the target markets founders list on their profiles. In each group, 103, 1,854 and 618 companies respectively named at least one market, and the destination shares in this article are based on those companies.
A company’s home market is never counted as an expansion plan. “Europe” excludes the UK and each company’s own country, and we report the UK separately.
Scottish founders are the most likely to plan overseas
Of the Scottish companies in our data, 75.2% name at least one overseas target market. The figure is 60.1% for the rest of the UK and 67.4% for EU companies.
The Scottish gap over the rest of the UK is statistically clear (p = 0.0003), as is the gap between the rest of the UK and the EU (p < 0.0001). Scotland against the EU is closer (p = 0.08), so we treat that comparison as indicative only. Scottish founders also name more regions on average: 2.5, against 2.2 in the rest of the UK and 2.1 in the EU.
The US pull weakens in the EU
The US is named by 79.6% of Scottish companies with a target market, 73.4% in the rest of the UK and 61.0% in the EU. So 39% of EU companies naming a market do not name the US at all.
The shape of the plan shows it more clearly. Only 14.2% of EU companies plan the US without Europe, against 26.2% in Scotland. Meanwhile 32.4% of EU companies plan Europe without the US, against 11.7% in Scotland and 18.2% in the rest of the UK.
The EU is not uniform. Irish companies look much more like UK companies: 78% of those naming a market name the US (n = 87), against 58% for the rest of the EU. The largest EU groups in our data are Germany (145 companies), Ireland (108), France (87), Spain (80) and the Netherlands (79).
EU companies anchor on Europe, and half name the UK
Where the US recedes, Europe takes its place. 79.1% of EU companies with a target market name another European market (excluding the UK and their own country), against 65.0% in Scotland and 68.2% in the rest of the UK.
Half of EU companies (49.7%) name the UK. That is close to the share naming the US (61.0%), which makes the UK a serious second market for EU founders. We have no like-for-like figure for UK companies, because the UK is their home market.
These are different moves. An EU company expanding within the EU stays inside a single market, whilst a UK company entering the EU, or an EU company entering the UK, crosses a border and a regulatory regime. We keep them apart for that reason.
One caution: shipshape.vc is a UK-based platform, so EU founders who sign up may already have an interest in UK investors. The UK figure for EU companies is best read as a signal, not a census.
Beyond the Atlantic
The sharpest difference outside the US and Europe is Australia and New Zealand. 19.4% of Scottish companies name them, against 11.2% in the rest of the UK and 4.4% in the EU. The UK against EU gap is clear (p < 0.0001). The Scotland against rest of UK gap (p = 0.017) is indicative, as it is unadjusted and rests on a small Scottish sample.
Asia and the Gulf follow the same order, with Scotland highest (30.1% and 26.2%), then the rest of the UK (24.9% and 21.7%) and the EU (22.3% and 18.1%). We would not read much into those gaps at these sample sizes.
Two markets favour the EU or the UK. EU companies name Canada less often (3.9% against 7.7% in the rest of the UK, p = 0.0008) and Latin America more often (13.4% against 9.0%, p = 0.002).
What this means
For founders, the US is the default in the UK, but a default is not a strategy. EU founders show that a Europe-first plan is a credible alternative, and one in three in our data plans exactly that.
Our view is that investors should read the destination before the headline. A Scottish company planning the US and an EU company planning Europe and the UK are asking for different things from a lead investor: US networks in one case, cross-border regulatory and market knowledge in the other. A portfolio that backs “international” companies in general will not tell you which investor can help with which move.
That is an editorial position, not a finding. The findings are the numbers above.
Caveats and what we are monitoring
These are stated plans, not completed expansions. Founders list target markets on their own profiles, and plans change. Our companies are also those that chose to use shipshape.vc, a UK platform, so the sample may lean towards founders interested in UK investors, most of all among EU companies.
The Scottish sample is small (103 companies naming a market), and we ran many comparisons without adjusting for multiple testing. Where a gap is unadjusted or the sample is small, we have called it indicative.
Whilst we continue to monitor these trends as profiles are updated, we would not treat any single percentage point as a finding. The pattern is the finding: the US is the default for Scottish and rest of UK founders, and not for those in the EU.
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